Find Next Silicon Valley Idol at NVidia’s Annual GPU Event

During the Emerging Companies Summit held at NVidia's annual GPU Technology Conference scheduled in March, 2014, the graphic chip giant is staging a brand new event called "The Early Stage Challenge," where 12 rising tech stars will compete for a single $100,000 award in front a live audience, according to NVidia.

The stage is San Jose, Calif., where the American Idols will be propeller-heads and the panel of judges will include veteran tech and venture-capital experts. The date is March 26, 2014. Mark your calendar.

Each startup's CEO will briefly describe his or her business onstage, and the jury and audience will select a winner who "gets a $100,000 check, right on the spot," said NVidia.

Not everyone need apply, however.

The Early Stage Challenge is open to "seed-funded companies that have raised no more than $1 million in total capital," according to rules stipulated by NVidia. More importantly, "To be eligible, companies must use, or plan to use, GPU technologies related to games, visualization, computing, cloud or mobile."

Herein lies the connection between the Early Stage Challenge exercise and NVidia's graphics business.

Even given its restrictions, the event promises to be, at least, suspenseful, with that $100,000 check hanging in the balance. More importantly, the audience will witness the rare spectacle of VCs asking $64,000 questions, and seeing in real-time how each startup CEO stumbles, triumphs, or just misses.

NVidia said that all accepted candidates will receive free booth space at the GTC exhibition.

NVidia has been holding its Summit for six years, to showcase promising companies with disruptive GPU-based technologies who either use or plan to use NVIDIA processors. NVidia claims the Summit is a highlight of GTC, which attracts thousands of attendees from more than 50 countries. The Early Stage Challenge is a new addition to the Summit's agenda.

I agree with you on that. Most times, it is not the prize money that matters but the buzz and reputation that come by winning. That is why many still run for public city offices even when they can afford to pay all the combined city officers.

Goafrit, in fact, the whole point of giving out "only" $100,000 is probably because NVidia doesn't want to feed the company's next GPU chip competitor, isn't it. But I guess that would be missing the point. A better scenario for NVidia is to find a start-up that is onto something...like developing more innovative ways to exploit their GPU technology.

>> "The Early Stage Challenge," where 12 rising tech stars will compete for a single $100,000 award

This is certainly novel. But for a really good GPU startup, $100k may not move needle for them to close designs and move to this event. $1M might have stimulated more interests. If software or apps, yes, $100k is a lot of money to entice people to come. For a design IC firm especially for GPU, this award may be low. Yet, who knows, some grad students with nice ideas could try - that depends if they can qualify as they may need only companies in this competition.